The Legions of Fire

by David Drake

  Alphena didn’t know what Hedia would tell Saxa or what Saxa would choose to do; she couldn’t control that. But she wanted both of them, particularly her father, to know that Lady Alphena stood shoulder to shoulder with her stepmother.

  HEDIA MET HER HUSBAND’S eyes again when it was clear that Alphena had said all that she intended to. Too often when people were tested, they learned—and those depending on them learned—regrettable things about themselves. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case with Hedia’s daughter.

  “Has she been hurt?” Saxa said. “What’s Lenatus doing?”

  “I don’t think it’s serious,” Hedia said calmly. It couldn’t have been serious, not the way Alphena had been dancing around until Corylus and his flute controlled the demons. “She may have been bumped, my lord, but our daughter is a very sturdy young lady.”

  And still a virgin, but she wasn’t going to discuss that directly with her husband.

  “And you, my dear?” Saxa said. “Are you all right? You look …”

  Hedia grimaced. “Yes, I do,” she admitted. “Well, after a bath and a change of clothes, and burning these”—she flicked her tattered tunic—“since they’re not even worth saving as rags”—and I don’t want to be reminded of them—“then I’ll be fine. It’s not my blood, you see.”

  She swallowed. She had to be very careful how she phrased the next part.

  “I may have been dabbed when I bandaged Pandareus,” Hedia said. “He’d been knocked down by the ring of a lantern that was, well, thrown at him. But most of it”—she met her husband’s eyes with her straight, cool gaze—“came from Nemastes. He attacked Alphena, and I fought him off. And killed him.”

  “That was what happened just now, before Pandareus summoned us?” Saxa said. “But dear—you were gone for days. And Alphena too.”

  “My lord and master,” Hedia said. She took a deep breath. “There were difficult times, but we came through them—and the man responsible is dead. I would rather not revisit the things that happened.”

  Especially with my husband. For his sake more than her own, but for hers as well.

  Saxa sighed and rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of both hands. “I apologize, my dear heart,” he said softly. “I brought Nemastes into your lives. I didn’t think he could be a swindler, since he had as much gold of his own as anyone could want.”

  He paused, peering at Hedia again. “But he was merely trying to abduct my daughter?”

  “Yes, dear,” Hedia lied calmly. “I’m sorry, but that appears to be the case.”

  She glanced at the wizard’s body and rather regretted it. She had no qualms about having killed him, but the corpse was so messy. She had been grappling with Nemastes while she stabbed him, as she couldn’t help remembering.

  “My lord?” she said. “Will there be problems? For me? Because I killed Nemastes?”

  “There will not be an inquiry into a noblewoman’s protecting her daughter against a barbarian rapist,” said Saxa with a rasping intensity Hedia had never before heard in his voice. “If you like, I can request that you receive the thanks of the Senate for safeguarding the chastity of Carcean womanhood.”

  Hedia blinked. “No!” she said. “No, please, my lord. The less talk there is about this—”

  She looked around the hall. The temple servants were all awake, though they seemed to cluster about Sempronius, the commissioner of the sacred rites. She’d used his wine to clean the teacher’s scalp and her own gory arms. Pandareus wore the dinner napkin as a bandage too. Nobody seemed willing to object to what Hedia had done—or even to refer to it.

  “Well,” she concluded lamely, “I’d like to forget it. If … if you permit me to, my Husband?”

  Saxa didn’t speak for a moment. He must have rushed out of the house, because he wasn’t wearing a toga. He never appears in public without a toga.

  “My Wife,” he said formally, “I asked you before: are you all right?”

  Hedia took his hands in her own. His fingers felt hot and pudgy.

  “My lord and master,” she said, holding his eyes with her own. “I may be a little worse for wear, but as you know I was never a hothouse flower. I’m still the woman you married, Saxa. Is that”—she couldn’t help it: she turned her face away as she forced out the last of what she had to say—“still good enough for you?”

  “Yes, my Wife,” Saxa said. “My little sparrow.”

  He embraced Hedia awkwardly, because he was an awkward little man. Her heart swelled with love and pride.

  “I’M GLAD TO SEE YOU,” Corylus said, clasping hands with his servant, “but how did you happen to be here, Pulto? And Saxa too. I didn’t know I was coming here an hour ago.”

  “Well, it was Pandareus,” Pulto said, nodding toward the teacher, who was talking to Varus. The youth was in good shape, but Pandareus wore a serviceable bandage on his head. “He sent messengers saying that you and their ladyships”—Pulto dipped his head twice this time, indicating Alphena and then her stepmother—“were coming here. I guess he must’ve told your pal Varus too, though he didn’t say so. Anna wanted to come, but you know—she doesn’t get around quick anymore. And besides, I thought it might be more a job for me.”

  His hand patted the sword under his cloak. The blade sang softly. “I don’t mind telling you,” he went on, “I was glad to see Lenatus come along with old Saxa. The Senator, I should say. But you seem to have had things in hand without us.”

  Pulto frowned. “Only—is that a flute you’ve got there, master?” he said doubtfully.

  Corylus looked at the pierced bone in his left hand, then met his servant’s eyes. With a hint of challenge, he said, “Yeah, this is a flute, Pulto. I haven’t forgotten I’m a soldier of Carce, but you know—sometimes that takes a flute instead of a sword. Or even a hornbeam staff.”

  “Ah!” said Pulto, looking away in embarrassment. “Well, I didn’t mean anything, master. There’s a lot of gentlemen who play the flute, I’m told; only they’re mostly Greek, but that’s all right too. I don’t doubt that whatever you been doing this past couple days, it would make your father proud.”

  Corylus suddenly remembered that all Pulto knew was that his young charge had vanished and had suddenly reappeared—with a flute but without explanation—in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. He hugged the old soldier. That wasn’t proper behavior for a master and servant, let alone a youth and a middle-aged man, but it was the best way to express his feelings toward Pulto.

  “Thanks, old friend,” he said. “My father felt better knowing you were backing him, and so do I.”

  “Well, old One-Eye was wrong, wasn’t he?” said a harsh voice from above. “A fine place we’d all be if Corylus here had taken his advice.”

  Corylus looked up. A pair of ravens perched on a crossbeam above them.

  “You know One-Eye,” said the other raven. “Go straight ahead with a sword and kill everything in front of you. That’s his notion of wisdom.”

  “How did they get here?” Pulto said, looking at the ravens with a scowl of wonder.

  “You can hear them?” Corylus said in surprise.

  “Hear them?” said his servant. “Hell yes, how could I not hear that croak, as oftentimes as I’ve heard it before? But on the borders, not right here in the center of Carce.”

  “Choosing this young warrior for his agent,” said the first raven. “That was wise, I’ll grant.”

  “As it turned out,” replied the other with a hint of disagreement. “It’s only in memory that you can be sure what is true wisdom.”

  “You say!” said the first with a harsh laugh. “But yes, wisdom must be built on memory.”

  Pulto glanced about the floor. Looking for something to throw at them, Corylus realized.

  He put his hand on his servant’s shoulder and said, “I think they’re good luck, given the way things worked out tonight. Let’s let them be, shall we?”

  “Huh?” said Pulto. “Oh. Well, sure. If t
hey want dinner on that bastard’s eyes”—when he glanced toward the corpse of Nemastes, his hand went un-bidden to the hilt of his now-concealed sword—“I’m not the man who’s going to stop ’em.”

  Pulto looked at Corylus. “Can we get back to the apartment now?” he said. “Anna is going to be wondering how things worked out. You know how women are, boy.”

  Corylus thought of Alphena facing the demons which boiled from the pit and Hedia stepping back from the dying wizard, her arms bloody to the elbow. “Women are just fine, old friend,” he said. “But yes, I’d like to get a proper meal in me and to sleep in my own bed.”

  He paused for a moment. “Pulto?” he said.

  “Master?”

  “Pulto, you said my father would be proud of me,” Corylus said, “and I think he would. But I think my mother would too.”

  VARUS LOOKED AT THE IVORY TALISMAN. He had to force the fingers of his left hand to open, because they’d been gripping it so tightly. The crude carving of Botrug looked back at him; but when the lantern light fell just the right way, he saw an old woman smiling through her wrinkles.

  Or perhaps he was looking at a reflection of his own face. If he squinted, that was what he seemed to see. Shaking his head in wonder, Varus dropped the talisman down the neck of his tunic again.

  A gaggle of servants stood close to Varus but were afraid to approach him. Pandareus stepped through them and said, “I’m glad you got free, Lord Varus. It must have happened after I knocked myself silly.”

  “Sir?” said Varus, noticing his teacher’s bandage for the first time. Blood had seeped through it on the left side of his forehead. “Did you slip and hit the floor?”

  “No,” said Pandareus, smiling wryly. “I threw a lantern at a demon. When the lantern exploded, a piece hit me in the head. I seem to be even less suited for physical heroics than I realized when you and I were trying to escape the dragon that chased us.”

  He cleared his throat and added, “I’m glad to see you back, my student. I was concerned about you and about Master Corylus as well. I knew nothing about the women until I was told that you both and they would be in this temple tonight, facing great danger.”

  “Master?” said Varus. His left hand traced the dimples of Botrug’s eyes beneath the fabric of his tunic. “You were told? By the stars, do you mean?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Pandareus said deliberately. “It was in a star chart, yes. The meaning seemed quite clear to me as I looked at it. But I saw the chart in a dream, and the sage Menre brought it to me.”

  “And you came to help us, master?” Varus said. He spoke before he thought and regretted the words as they came out of his mouth.

  “Yes,” said the little old man in a worn tunic. “I sent messengers to your father and Corylus’s servant—”

  We need to reimburse him for the cost of public couriers! Varus thought.

  “—but I was closer, so I arrived ahead of them. I didn’t see that I would be able to accomplish anything useful, but I had put you both in danger.”

  He grinned wryly. “I was correct that I couldn’t help,” he added. “But since I survived, at least I don’t have to remember that I didn’t try.”

  Varus straightened. “You didn’t put us in danger, my Teacher,” he said formally. “And speaking for myself …”

  He took a deep breath. For a moment he felt as though he were again breathing the clear cold air of the clouds above the island of the Twelve.

  “Master Pandareus,” Varus said. “The cosmos is wide and more accessible than philosophers would have us believe. The education and intellectual rigor which you work to instill in your students fitted me to act in that cosmos and to return to my home.”

  Instead of answering immediately, Pandareus looked about the hall. Corylus and his servant were walking toward the door. Corylus caught Varus’s eye and raised an eyebrow; Varus nodded his friend on. They would meet tomorrow to discuss this, but not now. At the moment Varus wasn’t in shape to talk more about what had happened.

  Hedia and Alphena stood side by side, holding hands. Each reached across the other placing right hand in left, so that their arms were interlaced. Their apparent closeness was as much a surprise as any of the other things which Varus had seen since the afternoon of his poetry reading.

  The women would probably like to leave also, but Saxa was speaking forcefully to Sempronius Tardus, who as commissioner tonight was in charge of the temple. Saxa appeared to be blaming his fellow senator for what had happened. He couldn’t really believe what he was saying—Nemastes was scarcely the fault of Tardus—but it was a better direction in which to turn thoughts than a more truthful one. This would all be hushed up quickly, by the commissioners for sacred rites and by the unanimous Senate.

  Varus smiled. It was a pleasure to watch his father dealing ably with a crisis. There were more ways to protect Carce than to stand in the middle of the Tiber bridge, facing the massed Etruscan armies.

  “Teacher?” Varus said, since Pandareus still hadn’t spoken.

  Pandareus met his gaze again. “I’ve never doubted that there were many things in this world which I didn’t and couldn’t understand,” he said. His smile was wistful but still a real smile. “However I didn’t expect so many of them to be”—he gestured with both hands—“so close to me, so to speak.”

  “Yes, master,” Varus said. “But education allows us to meet the unknown and deal with it.”

  “Education and also courage, I would add,” Pandareus said. “But you citizens of Carce have never lacked for courage, have you?”

  He sighed, then smiled broadly. “In any case, I certainly hope that you’re correct about being able to deal with the unknown. Because the star chart Menre showed me also indicated that something is approaching us from the waters to the west. And it is no more our friend than Nemastes was.”

  Read on for a preview of

  Air and Darkness

  David Drake

  Available in November 2015 by Tom Doherty Associates

  A “Tor Hardcover” ISBN 978-0-7653-2081-0

  Copyright 2015 by David Drake

  CHAPTER I

  Help us, Mother Matuta,” chanted Hedia as she danced sunwise in a circle with eleven women of the district. The priest Doclianus stood beside the altar in the center. It was of black local stones, crudely squared and laid without mortar—what you’d expect, forty miles from Carce and in the middle of nowhere.

  “Help us, bringer of brightness! Help us, bringer of warmth!”

  Hedia sniffed. Though the pre-dawn sky was light, it certainly hadn’t brought warmth.

  The dance required that she turn around as she circled. Her long tunic was cinched up to free her legs, and she was barefoot.

  She felt like a complete and utter fool. The way the woman immediately following in the circle—the wife of an estate manager—kept stepping on her with feet as horny as horse hooves tipped Hedia’s embarrassment very close to fury.

  “Let no harm or danger, Mother, menace our people!”

  The things I do to be a good mother, Hedia thought. Not that she’d had any children herself—she had much better uses for her body than to ruin it with childbirth!—but her current husband, Gaius Alphenus Saxa, had a seventeen-year-old son, Gaius Alphenus Varus, and a daughter, Alphena, a year younger.

  A daughter that age would have been a trial for any mother, let alone a stepmother of twenty-three like Hedia. Alphena was a tomboy who had been allowed to dictate to the rest of the household until Saxa married his young third wife.

  Nobody dictated to Hedia, and certainly not a slip of a girl who liked to dress up in gladiator’s armor and whack at a post with a weighted sword. There had been some heated exchanges between mother and daughter before Alphena learned that she wasn’t going to win by screaming threats anymore. Hedia was just as willing as her daughter to have a scene, and she’d been threatened too often by furious male lovers to worry about a girl with a taste for drama.

 
“Be satisfied with us, Mother of Brightness!” Hedia chanted, and the stupid cow stepped on her foot again.

  A sudden memory flashed before Hedia and dissolved her anger so thoroughly that she would have burst out laughing if she hadn’t caught herself. Laughter would have disrupted the ceremony as badly as if she had turned and slapped her clumsy neighbor.

  I’ve been in similar circumstances while wearing a lot less, Hedia thought. But I’d been drinking and the men were drunk, so until the next morning none of us really noticed how many bruises we were accumulating.

  Hedia wasn’t sure that she’d do it all again; the three years since that party hadn’t turned her into a Vestal Virgin, but she’d learned discrimination. Still, she was very glad for the memory on this chill June morning.

  “Help us, Mother Matuta! Help us! Help us!”

  After the third “Help us,” Hedia faced the altar and jumped in the air as the priest had told her to do. The other dancers carried out some variation of that. Some jumped sooner, some leaped forward instead of remaining in place as they were supposed to, and the estate manager’s wife outdid herself by tripping and pitching headfirst toward the altar.

  It would serve her right if she knocked her few brains out! Hedia thought; but that wasn’t true. Being clumsy and stupid wasn’t really worthy of execution. Not quite.

  The flutist who had been blowing time for the dance on a double pipe halted. He bowed to the crowd as though he were performing in the theater, as he generally did. Normally the timekeeper would have been a rustic clapping sticks together or perhaps blowing a panpipe. Hedia had hired Daphnis, the current toast of Carce, for the task.

  Daphnis had agreed to perform because Hedia was the wife of a senator and the current Governor of Lusitania—where his duties were being carried out by a competent administrator who needed the money and didn’t mind traveling to the Atlantic edge of Iberia. Saxa, though one of the richest men in the Republic, was completely disinterested in the power his wealth might have given him. His wife, however, had a reputation for expecting people to do as she asked and for punishing those who chose to do otherwise.